Billing Problems Send Digital Customers Back to Support
Companies have spent years making it easier for customers to pay bills online. They have made less progress helping them fix a bill when something goes wrong. Four in 10 consumers have had to contact customer support to resolve a billing problem, according to “The Service Commerce Performance Gap,” a PYMNTS Intelligence report produced in […] The post Billing Problems Send Digital Customers Back…
Despite years of progress digitizing bill payments, consumers continue to face significant obstacles when seeking to resolve billing issues. According to a PYMNTS Intelligence report, four in 10 consumers, or 40%, have had to reach out to customer support at some point to address a billing problem - a finding that highlights the shortcomings of the self-service aspect of digital billing.
This issue is compounded by limited control over payment timing, which ranks alongside trouble with bill resolution as the most commonly reported billing problem.
The study's findings reveal a self-service gap in billing systems, where consumers can easily receive, review, and make payments, but resolving problems often necessitates human intervention. This places billing friction at the center of operating costs for service providers, as customers turn to customer service to handle billing issues that could potentially be resolved digitally.
Common billing frustrations include confusion over charges and payment statuses, unexpected fees, and processing delays, with 30% to 33% of consumers reporting each of these issues. While payment execution scored high at 72 out of 100 in the study, resolution scored only 66, indicating the remaining challenges in the billing journey.
Even though most providers offer flexibility like payment extensions, grace periods, and the ability to choose payment dates, only 15% to 31% of these options are available through self-service.
Younger consumers, particularly Gen Z (52%) and millennials (49%), are more likely to experience billing breakdowns that require customer service, compared to older generations. Providers themselves may not view their resolution capabilities as a major weakness, with only 5% rating their support teams as below ideal, while 14% of consumers rate providers below ideal on the same measure.
This suggests that investment in other areas, such as bill delivery and review, takes priority over payment flexibility, cross-channel integration, and post-payment resolution.
The consequences of billing problems extend beyond customer frustration, as 26% of consumers have delayed payments until disputes were resolved, and 23% have deliberately delayed payments due to dissatisfaction. These delays can hinder the payment collection process, emphasizing the need for providers to address billing issues more effectively to maintain smooth payment flow and customer satisfaction.
Written by urgent.news from PYMNTS's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
